Welcome to Gaia! ::

now that's genius
you actually pointed out a point that I didn't notice
in wars information is everything whoever controls the information flow controls the war

yeah that and for early detection of incomming attacks

yeah but that strategy is not even possible in our age let alone in medieval times when it was only close combat because the minute that you try to shift your ranks in the midst of battle your enemy will overrun your forces

I wouldn't bet that the "own" people get the truth served. You will want their support, so in most cases some of these mechanisms are used:

make them hate the enemy and see them as inferior.
It will make it more easy for your soldiers to fight them as some moral questions get out of scope that way.

make the engagements you won look glorious and those you lost just as minor incidents.
You want to inhibit people from questioning your war. So never tell the real costs (be it money or lives), try to keep on the illusion that success is just around the corner.

Use a lot of euphemism. Your people don't torture, they just do serious interogations. When you hit some wrong people that is no error, just call it colateral damage.
Errors will happen, but you don't want anyone to blame the system for it. If s**t happens it will always be some personal failure of someone low in the chain of command, but in no way you want it to look like it was planned or system intrinsic.

There are a lot more of these mechanisms to use. In my oppinion many of those institutions telling you the "truth" are just like the "ministery of truth" (read 1984 by George Orwell for further reference).

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence. wink

Never expect the truth from any politician (especially if he has happened to study Macchiavelis 'il pricipe' and Sun Tsu's 'The art of war') and in modern armys I tend to believe almost everyone above the rank of major to be more a politician than a soldier wink .

lol, but seriously stuff like that has happened in almost every conflict.

'Hanibal ante portas' was something the romans already used to scare their kids and grow hate against that Carthagans. Some senator (Cato i think) used to end every speech at that time with the sentence "ceterum censeo carthaginam delendam esse" (roughly translated 'and by the way I think Carthago has to be destroyed'). And I'm pretty sure that was not the first use of those tactics.

Using 'embedded reporters' in the units was a pretty smart move. You can controll their movement (and thereby what they can see) much better and there's also an psychological and emotional component as it's not that easy to keep your objectivity when you're in close contact with those soldiers you write about and rely on to keep your a** safe-